Supply Side

I have a distinct memory of sitting in the back seat of our station wagon watching the little plates on the gas pump fall one after the other as my mom filled up the tank. It was 1974 and the Energy Crisis was in full swing. The price per gallon of gasoline in our New jersey town had recently topped fifty cents. At twelve years old, that seemed like an impossible amount to me; I remember shaking my head and thinking that a whole dollar would barely buy 2 gallons.

If that was one of my earliest economic recollections, six years later I got another lesson when I stayed with a friend and her family for a few days in Italy. In Europe, gas was three times as much as it was in the states, but I had flown there from our home in Saudi Arabia, and when her dad asked me about the price of gas in the Kingdom, I laughed when I told him it was about 28 cents a gallon. His outrage surprised me. "Everyone should be paying more for a commodity in such short supply," he fumed. "It should be a free market."

Today I feel lucky to be a person who rarely drives over 5 miles a day; I can go over two weeks without filling the tank. I'm also fortunate to be able to pay for gas whenever I want to take a longer trip, even when it's over four dollars a gallon like it was in 2008. And I understand that the price of a gas is a function of many things: economic, environmental, and political.

Even so, this morning when I filled my tank for less than 35 dollars? I did a little happy dance.

The More Days of Christmas

When I was a kid, New Years day was one of the most boring days of the year. The drone of football floated over the drowsy living room, and upstairs the only other thing on was the Mummers Parade, a confounding pageant of feathers and stringed instruments capering down Broad Street. It wasn't hard to see that Christmas break was definitely over.

These days I like it better. Heidi and I always go to the first movie of the morning, and then the day is filled with preparing our traditional meal for family and friends. That takes the sting out of the end of vacation. And then there are some years, like this year, when school doesn't start until next Monday.

Four more days off? Now that's the way to start a year!

Legal in Virginia

When you know it's right, it's right.

This morning after 16+ years together, Heidi and I went on down to the courthouse and got us a marriage license, and while there was no walk down the aisle, there were many wedding day smiles when the civil celebrant put it all to rest, as long as we both shall live.

Bragging Rights

A few months ago my brother complained of hip pain that grew excruciating when he was forced to sit still, for example on airplanes (on which he traveled on all the time for work), for any length of time over a little while. "I know what it is," I said. "It's bursitis."

I was able to speak with such authority, not only because I'm a notorious know-it-all, but also because, I, too, had suffered from such pain. Regular readers might recall that back in May of 2012 I sought help from an acupuncturist for my malady. Back then, after a couple of months of semi-weekly treatment, I was pain-free. Recently, though, that hitch in my left-side giddy-up has returned and so I also returned for a little more spinning needle therapy today. Although my relief was not quite as immediate as last time, I am looking forward to a couple of 30 minute snoozes a week for the next month or so.

Oh? And when, a couple of days after that conversation, my mother called to check in with my brother about his own hip, he had been diagnosed and treated, and in response he spoke some of my favorite words:

"Tracey was right." 

Shipping News

The guy at the UPS store saw us coming: he burst out the door to help us with our burden of parcels and bags and boxes to be shipped. Once inside, though, it was him who seemed to be hyperventilating. "We'll get through this!" he said under his breath surveying the load now stacked neatly on the floor by the counter.

Our eyebrows were raised; we knew there was a lot to send, but this was a shipping store, wasn't it? And as nice and helpful as he was to us, he was a little testy with any new customers coming in the door, "It's going to be a few minutes," he informed them curtly.

Each box that was taped up, weighed, and labeled was a personal triumph, a huge weight off his shoulders and onto the pick-up pile. And when, 85 pounds later, at last I swiped my card and signed the slip to finalize the transaction, for a moment it seemed like he might vault the counter to give us a high five or something, so it was a little anti-climactic when he simply nodded and said, "Next customer?"

There is a World Elsewhere

After eight crazy days of family, we dropped the last of our holiday guests at the airport this afternoon and decided to head downtown instead of home. There we entered a jolly throng of folks visiting the mall and its museums. The Nature's Best Photography exhibit was stunning as always, and there were several fun items on sale at the bustling National Gallery gift shop. Afterwards, a crescent moon shone bravely through the clouds and stop lights reflected red on the wet pavement of Constitution Avenue as we drove home in the gathering dusk, and it felt good to have rejoined the world.

The Color of Time

Looking for a movie to entertain our diverse group, I found The Hustler on Netflix this afternoon, and sure enough it had something to hold the attention of each of us: Heidi's dad liked the pool playing; her mom liked Paul Newman; her brother was interested in watching a classic for the first time, and I got a kick out of seeing Jackie Gleason as Minnesota Fats. When it was all over, I flipped immediately to its sequel. I saw The Color of Money back in '86 when it came out, and I haven't seen it since. Back then, I considered it a Tom Cruise movie, of course, and Paul Newman seemed like a minor character who abandons Vincent in a temper tantrum.

Today, though, I was mostly interested in seeing how Fast Eddie fared in the 25 years following his hollow victory in Ames, and when it came down to that final showdown in Atlantic City, I was actually rooting for the old man. Sure, Tom Cruise and I are the same age, born just a few days apart, but both of us are much closer to Eddie Felson's age now. Funny how that happens.